The Emancipation of Jackie

It’s been a crazy week or so around here, but oddly enough there’s not much to say as to why it’s been so crazy. There may be something to talk about in the near future, but for now it’s just crickets and tumbleweeds around here.

This is making me homesick for California.

In a smidge of writing news, I finished one of my short stories and submitted it in a contest with a grand prize of publication in a crime magazine. So far it’s one of the top-rated stories, but the reading and submission period just started so I’m not about to count my chickens before they hatch. If any of you have a free account with Lit Reactor (or are bored enough to create one) you can click on the link for the contest and look for my name—the story is titled Early Retirement. (There are also plenty of other killer stories by the other contestants, as well)

Do any of you fellow writers use writing prompts? I’m not a huge fan of them for the most part, but there is one writing prompt website I like: TypeTrigger.com. What I like about Type Trigger is that it’s kind of like the writer’s equivalent of Twitter—you take their prompt and write whatever comes spewing out of your brain with the restriction that you only have three hundred words to work with. I’ve almost reached that already in this post, so you can see it’s not a lot of room to tell a story. I don’t use it all that often, but through their prompts I have come up with a couple of odd little stories I sort of liked. Since I don’t have much else to talk about right now, I decided to share one.

The prompt for this one was ‘a cheap wig.’ I thought for a couple minutes and this is what I came up with. Enjoy.

The Emancipation of Jackie

Jackie smiled at his marks with calm assurance. He knew they wanted the car, and he was determined to make the sale. “It’s the model you said you wanted,” he reminded them. They were a young couple; newlyweds, in fact. They had told him so and he used that information to his advantage. “Surely you don’t want to disappoint your new bride.”

“Well, it’s just…”Jeff began, his new wife’s hand in his. “It’s really a skeleton of a car. It doesn’t even have air conditioning.”

“I see.” Jackie realized the mark was trying to sweeten the deal. If that was what it took to close the sale, so be it. “I can throw in a few extras, how does that sound? What would you like? Maybe a nice leather steering wheel cover?”

Jeff looked at his wife, thoughtful. He turned back to Jackie with a gleam in his eye. “The rug,” he said.

Jackie frowned, confused. “You mean floor mats? I suppose I can make that happen, I might need—”

“No, the rug,” Jeff repeated. “On your head.”

Jackie felt his face heat up. “Sir, I don’t…uh…”

Jeff grinned. “If you take that dead animal that passes for a toupee off your head right now, and promise never to put it on again, I’ll buy this car.” His wife giggled.

Jackie waved as the car drove away, and for the first time in years he felt free.

About

Kenneth Jobe is a writer, photographer, musician, and Native Californian currently living in the Midwest with his wife and son. He is a music critic and concert photographer for Kill Boring Music, and posts pop culture reviews and stream of consciousness pieces on his blog, Books of Jobe. Find his work online at killboringmusic.com and booksofjobe.com.

Kenneth’s fiction has been published in Jitter, The Rusty Nail, Ghostlight: The Magazine of Terror, and the horror anthology Robbed of Sleep, Volume 2. His debut novel, The End of Jimmy Ray Day, is being published by Literary Wanderlust and is coming soon.